Academy of Vocal Arts

OverviewProgramsResearchClassroomStudent BodySchool Finances

Overview

Academy of Vocal Arts is located in a large city with a population of more than 250,000. It is in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington PA-NJ-DE-MD area.

Address

1920 Spruce St

Philadelphia, PA 19103

www.avaopera.org

Additional links

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

Accreditation:

good

SOURCES:

2021 Accreditation

Institutional Control

Academy of Vocal Arts is a private not-for-profit organization.

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

2021 Peterson's

Fewer details

Accreditation

Accreditation provides important oversight over a school's instructional practices and institutional stability.

Academy of Vocal Arts holds an accreditation from one of the national accreditors. Credits earned from the national accreditors are often not accepted by schools holding the more prestigious regional accreditation, and it's important to verify that your credits will transfer if you are considering an eventual switch to another school.

Accreditation History

National Association of Schools of Music, Commission on Accreditation (Accredited November 1, 1998 - present)

The accreditation was recently renewed on February 23, 2018.
The next accreditation review is scheduled for June 1, 2025.

SOURCES:

2021 Accreditation

Programs

Postbaccalaureate Cert offerings at Academy of Vocal Arts

Music Performance

A program that generally prepares individuals to master musical instruments and performing art as solo and/or ensemble performers. Includes instruction on one or more specific instruments from various instrumental groupings

Note: The name and definition of this program are based on Department of Education CIP code descriptions, which ensures uniform reporting across schools in the US. Please check this school's website for detailed program information and their specific course descriptions._

Choose how to look at program completions

By Level

By Race/Origin

By Gender

Completions in Music Performance by award level

Postbaccalaureate Cert

Recently College Scorecard released data on starting salaries and cumulative federal student debt for each school/program combination with sufficient graduates to allow for privacy concerns with data releases. Shown in the box plots below are data for all schools offering music (which may contain several related fields) by award level. If a value is reported for Academy of Vocal Arts, then that is shown in blue.

Starting Salaries

Cumulative Federal Student Loan Debt

What can I do if I study Music Performance?

Below we list the careers that the US Department of Education suggests are best fits for people who studied music performance. You can get an idea of salary and the level of education you'll need, as well as whether this is a growing or shrinking career field. Sometimes this list of recommended careers doesn't match what people who earned this degree are really doing. Our music performance program page has much more information about the interplay between study in this field and possible careers. Select any table row to learn more about listed career.

Music Directors and Composers

Musicians and Singers

Postsecondary Art, Drama, and Music Teachers

SOURCES:

2021,2020 Ididio: Award levels

2021 College Scorecard

2018,2019 ACS microdata

2010 CIP Codes

2019 BLS Occupational Employment

Research

The library is the backbone of academic learning and research

We have no library data for Academy of Vocal Arts in spite of the fact that about 100 of the degrees it awards are bachelor's or higher degrees. It is unusual for a school with this focus to not have library data. In fact, about 90% of the schools that graduate at least 10% of students at the bachelor's or higher level report library information.

In the age of digital resources, a library can offer incredible support even to distance education students. For students on campus, the library is the study and meeting hub for both residential and commuting students. Through the academic libraries, students can freely access resources not available on the internet.

It is difficult to imagine a meaningful bachelor's or graduate degree program that does not require independent research projects from its students. Without academic library resources, those projects could become quite expensive and also much more difficult, because academic librarians are indispensable for guiding students toward appropriate resources for a research project. The greater fear is that a lack of library means that minimal research and outside reading is expected of students. If you're interested in attending Academy of Vocal Arts, you should ask about their library resources and research expectations, and make sure that you would be receiving the academic challenges and support that you and your future reputation deserve.

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

Research funding: the best indicator of post-baccalaureate academic rigor

Any school that reports at least $150,000 in research and development expenditures in a given year should have submitted out the Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey to the National Science Foundation (NSF). We did not find HERD data for $Academy of Vocal Arts, so there would at most modest graduate-level academic scholarship campus-wide.

SOURCES:

2018 NSF HERD Survey

Classroom Experience

Student attention at Academy of Vocal Arts

Schools are required to report the ratio of students per instructor, but look for a small number of students for every full-time instructor as your best indicator of personal attention and a modern well-integrated curriculum.

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

2020 Ididio: Student-to-faculty ratio

Fewer details

Full-time and long-term instructors at Academy of Vocal Arts

Full-time faculty are mostly likely to be on campus and available for interaction, and to craft up-to-date courses and programs. Academy of Vocal Arts has 44% full-time instructors, and 88% of the context schools have a higher percentage of full-time instructors. Faculty with multi-year contracts provide additional stability and commitment to the school and its students.Within the full-time instructors at Academy of Vocal Arts, none have multi-year employment contracts. Of the context schools, 97% have instructors with multi-year contracts.

Full-time instructors

Long-term instructors

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

Student Body

Study Types

All students are full-time. No students take distance education courses.

Full-time

Online classes

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

Context: Student body size

Academy of Vocal Arts enrolled 27 students over the past academic year. The the student body size is smaller than almost all the context schools.

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

Gratduate student gender

Is the gender balance of Academy of Vocal Arts students important to you? You can see the breakdown in this donut chart.

Gender

Men

Women

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

Gratduate student race/origin

Academy of Vocal Arts reports that 7% of students are minority, which is less than 99% of the context schools. However, with 41% international students, this school has a higher percentage of international students than 93% of the context schools.

Race/Origin

White

Black

Asian

International

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

Fewer details

Context: Gender Balance

It is very difficult for many types of schools to achieve a gender balance, and this context is valuable in evaluating the balance at Academy of Vocal Arts.

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

Context: Percentage of women

With 41% women students, Academy of Vocal Arts has a lower percentage of women than 94% of context schools.

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

Context: Student race/origin

Here is how Academy of Vocal Arts compares to the rest of the context group in terms of diversity in the student race and origin.

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

2019 Ididio:Race/origin

Student age distribution

Graduate students' ages may vary a lot from program to program, and we can only provide this statistic as a total for all graduate programs. In general, if the colors in the time chart lean towards lighter turquoise, you can surmise that this school is attracting students soon after they've completed their undergraduate degrees.

Age range

22-24

25-29

30-34

SOURCES:

2019 IPEDS

School Finances

Academy of Vocal Arts: What its budget can tell you about classroom quality

Where a school spends and collects its money can suggest a lot about the educational experience it offers. The tabs below offer a look at spending that is important for the quality of your experience if you attend.

Instructional spending

Student services spending

Context and trends: Instructional expenditures per student

Instructional expenses are primarily the salary and benefits paid to the heart of a school: its full-time instructors. High expenditures in this area suggest care in hiring enough highly qualified full-time faculty to provide personal attention and up-to-date subject-area excellence.

Academy of Vocal Arts

On the blue curve, we see how the instructional expenses per student at Academy of Vocal Arts have changed over the years.

Context Schools

The shading shows the spread of the instructional expenses per student for the context schools. The dark shading shows the middle 50% of context schools, and the light shading shows all but the smallest and largest 10%.

All values have been adjusted for inflation. Customize your context group using the gear at the top of the page!

SOURCES:

2004-2019 IPEDS

2019 CPI

Fewer details

Does incoming revenue consistently cover expenses?

Academy of Vocal Arts is a private not-for-profit school. Along with publicly-controlled schools, not-for-profit schools do not have the goal of annual profit, but they do want to have healthy finances with adequate revenue to meet all expenses. On the other hand, private for-profit schools have creating a profit for shareholders as an annual goal.

Total revenue and expenses by category

We divided revenue and expenses for Academy of Vocal Arts into categories to give some insight to what may have influenced peaks and ditches in the chart above. The purple shades correspond most directly to student education. The blue shades, auxiliary expenses and revenue, are often related to room and board. We show investment gains and losses in apricot.

Investment gains

Government appropriations etc.

Private and capital gifts

Educational sales revenue

Other revenue

Investment losses

Instructional expenses

Student services expenses

Academic support expenses

Institutional support expenses

Other expenses

SOURCES:

2004-2019 IPEDS

2019 CPI

Not so much?

The power of a large endowment

Related to the previous question of whether the annual revenue stream is stable is the question, "How deep are this school's pockets?" For many schools, a major source of annual income is investment growth. Schools with large endowments have a built-in revenue stream, although you'll see in the accompanying graphs that this revenue stream is highly dependent on the nation's economy. You can choose how to examine the depth of Academy of Vocal Arts's resources by selecting from the buttons below.

Choose asset category

Net Assets

Total Endowment

Endowment Growth Rate

Net Assets Per Student

Here we examine assets at Academy of Vocal Arts in context, and it seems most fair to adjust for the size of the institution. We examine the assets per full-time-equivalent student so that we level the playing field for size.

There's a catch to these assets, though. Many gifts to a school's endowment have strings attached; the money is restricted to a specific purpose. Assets shown in green below are unrestricted, and are very important to a school's ability to meet its financial obligations. Some assets are the land and buildings that a school must have in order to function, and these may appear as green (unrestricted assets) but are nonetheless less helpful in meeting annual financial commitments. This look at assets is only a piece of the puzzle as we decide if a school is stable.

Restricted net assets

Unrestricted net assets

Context: 2019 net assets per student

SOURCES:

2004-2019 IPEDS

2019 CPI